I walked to my closet. I rifled past the dark pants, the matching jackets, the sensible blouses. My hand found the navy dress at the back—simple, elegant, fitted without being tight, with small pearlescent buttons down the front. I’d bought it on impulse last year and had never worn it. There’d never been an occasion.
I hung it on the hook on my bathroom door. Just in case.
But as I drifted off, it wasn’t Richard or the board meeting that filled my thoughts. It was the way Asher’s thumb had brushed across my palm when we shook hands. The way he’d said my name—Charlie—like he was testing how it felt on his tongue.
My alarm wentoff at six and I was already awake.
I showered again, which was ridiculous, but I told myself it was for the board meeting, not for dinner that was eleven hours away with a man whose last name I didn’t know. I dried my hair properly for the first time in weeks and put on actual mascara. Then I stood in front of the closet and reached for the black pants.
Board meeting first. Whatever Richard was about to drop, I needed to walk in looking like the lead engineer on SEAS, not like a woman who’d been up half the night thinking about a man’s hands.
I grabbed my bag, my keys, and the stack of research papers I’d been meaning to review, and coaxed the Corolla to life on the second try. Progress.
The drive to HydroCore was twenty minutes on a good day, and this morning the traffic cooperated. I used the time to mentally prepare for Richard’s announcement. Sale? Partnership? Funding restructure? Whatever it was, I needed to protect SEAS. Everything else was secondary.
I knew something was off the moment I pulled into the parking lot.
There were cars I didn’t recognize—three black SUVs with tinted windows, parked in the visitor spaces near the main entrance. The kind of cars that screamed corporate money. A security guard I’d never seen before was standing by the front door, clipboard in hand.
Inside was worse. The usual morning hum of the office—coffee brewing, keyboards clicking, casual conversations about last night’s game—was replaced by a low, anxious murmur. People were clustered in doorways, talking in hushed voices that stopped when I walked by.
Jason caught my arm in the hallway outside the lab. His face was pale.
“Have you heard?”
“Heard what?”
“Richard sold the company. Or—I don’t know, it’s some kind of takeover. There are lawyers in the conference room. Legal sent everyone an email at seven this morning.”
My stomach dropped. I pulled out my phone. There it was—a company-wide email from Richard Sterling’s office, sent at 7:02 a.m. Subject line: Transition of Ownership—Mandatory All-Hands Meeting, 8:00 a.m.
“Transition of ownership,” I repeated, the words tasting like ash.
“Charlie, people are saying—” Jason lowered his voice. “People are saying it’s Pierce Construction. Asher Pierce.”
The name hit me like a physical blow. Asher. Construction.
No.
“Charlie? Are you OK? You just went white.”
“I’m fine,” I said, though the hallway had tilted slightly. “I need to—I need to get to that meeting.”
I walked to the conference room on autopilot, my mind racing through every moment from the night before with sickening clarity. I’m in construction myself. I’ve heard of it. Small world. His careful vagueness, the way he’d steered the conversation, the way he’d asked where I worked as if he didn’t already know?—
He’d known. He’d known exactly who I was.
The conference room was standing room only. Every department head, every team lead, half the engineers. Richard stood at the far end of the long table, flanked by two men in suits I didn’t recognize. Lawyers. Their faces were professionally blank.
And there, standing at the head of the table like he owned the room—because he did now, apparently—was Asher.
He looked different in daylight. Sharper. The easy warmth from the bar was gone, replaced by something harder, more controlled. He wore a charcoal suit that probably cost more than my car, and his expression was unreadable as his gaze swept the room.
Until it found me.
Something flickered in his eyes. Recognition. And something else I couldn’t name—or didn’t want to.
I held his gaze. Didn’t flinch. Didn’t look away. Let him see exactly what I thought of him right now.
